by T F Allen
Thinking back to when I’d been near Donnie but not inside his head—in the tow truck with Michael and in the artist studio with Jolene—I realized Donnie might have been talking to this voice the whole time. Whether Cole was real or not, his voice was expressing opinions and giving advice. It was pushing Donnie into action—giving him ideas he hadn’t thought on his own. But more than that, in this last conversation Cole made a promise only someone like me could make.
I’ll watch him while you’re gone. You won’t miss a thing.
I’d always wondered if I was the only one who could see into people’s minds. Even though I’d never sensed it until now, I figured others like me might be out there. Donnie owned a mind ripe for suggestion after living most of his life starved for attention from his parents. And his fascination with the books in his father’s library only opened his mind wider. He knew I was in his head so quickly that first time in the artist studio, reacting to my gently spoken words. Donnie must have heard that creepy voice the moment it decided to speak.
Planning the perfect abduction wasn’t easy, but it was much easier when you had a lookout who could tip you off if anyone was watching. Donnie had executed two seamless abductions—so flawlessly performed the police never connected the crimes and never looked at him as a suspect. Maybe he had an accomplice—a lookout no one could see and only he could hear.
I spent the rest of the night by Michael’s side, monitoring his dreams and making sure Cole’s voice didn’t speak into his mind. When he wrestled with his thoughts over which tubes of paint to mix next, I whispered soothing words into his ear. When he scratched the irritated skin under his shock collar, I calmed him with my touch. The hours passed like minutes, and as I held him in my arms, I reminded myself why I was here.
Most people thought he was a jerk, a recluse, someone who thought he was better than everyone else. They thought they knew why he skipped his own gallery openings, why he wouldn’t give interviews, why he drove a twelve-year-old Hyundai when he could afford a Maserati. They thought they knew, but they didn’t. They didn’t know someone once threw him away like garbage. They didn’t see how losing Jolene changed the way he looked at himself. And they definitely didn’t need Michael to love them like I did, didn’t depend on him for their own identity.
I hugged him as hard as I could, and as long as he’d let me.
• • •
The next morning, I found Hannah and Sister Mary Elizabeth where I expected them to be: standing by the doors to the Harkrider winery. The sister’s face, exposed to the sun and without a mask of makeup, showed the toll the previous day had taken. The bags under her eyes sagged, and the worry wrinkles across her forehead had grown a quarter inch longer. Hannah looked ready to jump in front of a television camera. Her golden hair stayed perfectly in place no matter which direction the cool winds blew across the parking lot.
Hannah stood on the top step of the entrance, looking deep in thought. I jumped into her mind. She was busy comparing her surroundings with the information she’d researched last night.
Situated on the edge of the Vaca Mountains, the Harkrider property covered a series of hills that provided stunning vistas of the Napa Valley. Aside from the evenly spaced rows of vines that covered most of the land, there were sculpted hedges, walls coated with bougainvillea, and skinny towers of Italian cypress, all planted in eye-pleasing designs. No doubt she was looking over the most expensive farmland in the state. “All this opulence over squashed grapes. I don’t get it.”
“It’s an art form as old as civilization,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “Just look at it. It’s beautiful. I’m not surprised a vineyard like this would also produce an artist.”
“He’s a wannabe,” Hannah said. “Just like most people here, I bet.”
“At least wait until after the tour to make up your mind.”
“About the winemakers or Harkrider?”
“Both.”
Hannah regretted how little she and Sister Mary Elizabeth had learned during their midnight research session. Each fact they uncovered only highlighted how much more they needed to find out. Robert Harkrider and his wife, Gerda, purchased the vineyard in 1969 using a wealthy inheritance Gerda had received the year before. They had a son a few years later—Nicholas—who died at seventeen while racing his sports car along the winding turns of the Silverado Trail.
Donnie was born the same year his brother died, a surprise to older parents who’d just faced the horror of losing their first child before his eighteenth birthday. Not much was available online about Nicholas except a brief account of his death. They found even fewer details of Donnie’s childhood. The only newsworthy event in Donnie’s life was another accidental death, this time of his father, Robert. The Harkrider Vineyard website didn’t mention it, but Hannah found it as an archived story from the Napa Valley Register. Apparently Robert died eighteen years after his oldest son while inspecting the wine barrels in the caves located on the property. One of the supports had come loose. A barrel fell and rolled free, crushing Robert under its weight. An eighteen-year-old Donnie found the body and ran to tell his mother, who then called for help. But it was too late, of course.
Donnie was already taking classes at SFAI by the time of his father’s death, and he proved to be a promising artist. Several school-sponsored gallery shows featured his work, which wasn’t in the same league as Delacroix’s, according to Hannah, but wasn’t boring, either. It looked like Harkrider was striving for something with his paintings—she could see the effort he’d put into them—but she couldn’t put her finger on what he was trying for. The only common thread was violence against animals. Sister Mary Elizabeth turned away from the images on the screen—one painting of a she-wolf recoiling from a shotgun blast pushed her out of her comfort zone and sent her to bed. She’d seen enough, the nun had said. Hannah shrugged, told her roommate goodnight, and took another swig of her energy drink.
Harkrider also participated in a semester-end show the year he graduated. It was part of a charity scholarship auction, the same scholarship that had provided Delacroix’s room and board. Jolene submitted a few canvases as well, but the ones that fetched the big money all belonged to Delacroix.
The art show was more proof Harkrider knew both Jolene and Delacroix. But that wasn’t enough to call Captain Tuttle. Not yet, anyway.
By the time the winery doors opened, a group of twenty had joined Hannah and Sister Mary Elizabeth waiting on the front steps. Ten minutes later the group migrated to the edge of the vineyard, listening to the head sommelier talk about grapes and soil and sun exposure and microclimates. The sommelier was a well-spoken woman in her forties whose skin must have seen a lifetime of sun already—a hazard of the job, Hannah supposed. She told the group they’d just missed the last of the harvest period, and the vines, while still leafy and green, didn’t hold even one cluster of berries. All the grapes were in the fermenting barrels now, slowly decaying into the fuel that powered the Napa Valley economy.
No wonder the whole property smelled like wine to Hannah. She hated wine, mostly because she couldn’t understand it. It took forever to make, there were ten thousand different brands of the stuff, and she could never remember the names of the bottles she found drinkable. Everyone in this valley pretended their brand was better than the winery next door and would back it up with boring discussions about tannins and cluster densities and other things she couldn’t care less about. She tuned out all the grape talk—even as Sister Mary Elizabeth seemed to drink it all in—and looked around the estate.
The sun peeked out from behind a large cloud. Something flashed in the corner of her eye, and she turned. A tiny glare reflected from the third-floor window of a large house located a few hundred yards away. This was the same house she’d noticed on a satellite image she studied late last night—the only address she could find for Donnie.
“Who lives in that house?” she said, interrupting the sommelier midsentence.
“That’s the fami
ly mansion.”
“And who lives there?”
Sister Mary Elizabeth nudged her with her elbow. She whispered something, but Hannah didn’t listen. All her senses were focused on the signs coming from the Universe. This head sommelier had spent the last ten minutes telling the group what made Harkrider’s cabernet superior. Surely she’d spent enough time on this property to know something more than they could learn on a computer.
The sommelier squinted into the sunlight that had sent its message to Hannah. “The Harkrider family owns several estates in California and Nevada. It’s hard to say where they might be at any one time.”
“The family?” Hannah said. “You mean Gerda and her son Donnie. That’s all that’s left of the Harkriders now, right?”
Whispers spread through the group. Maybe a few of them knew about the Harkriders’ deadly past. Maybe they didn’t and were just uncomfortable with Hannah’s questions. I was inside her head, and even I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. She only knew one way to chase a story. So far it had helped her, but here it only marked her as a troublemaker in a place where she planned on making more than a little trouble.
The sommelier ignored her question and pulled the group farther down the path toward a warehouse. She pointed out a harvesting tractor designed to shake the grapes from their clusters without damaging the vines. Hannah and the sister lagged behind as they walked along the edge of the vineyard. “Next row take a right,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.
“Finally,” Hannah said.
“Could’ve been sooner if you hadn’t started playing Columbo.”
“Playing who?”
“Never mind.” Sister Mary Elizabeth darted between the rows of vines and ran deeper into the vineyard than the head sommelier would have let her. Hannah followed close behind, checking every few seconds to make sure no one had seen them.
Her heart was beating fast now, not because she was running but because she knew they were close to finding something. I was more excited than both of them. She couldn’t confirm Donnie even lived here anymore. She had a hunch he’d taken Michael, but she couldn’t know how close they were to his cell. I tried to help her make the connection. I sent her an image of the trapdoor set into the ground. She was too busy planning her next move to see it. The Harkrider mansion—that was all she cared about. Getting into that house and finding out as much as she could about Donnie was the only thing she focused on.
The row of vines stopped at the edge of an unpaved service road that led to the mansion. Sister Mary Elizabeth paused there to catch her breath. Hannah zoomed past, turning the corner at a full run. “Meet me at the back door,” she said.
“Wait, give me a minute.”
“I’ll find a way in by the time you get there.”
The road toward the mansion was only wide enough to fit one car or tractor at a time, allowing the vines to take up as much of the property as possible. The mansion was three stories of Victorian splendor, big enough to hold a large family and all their maids and butlers. Big enough to throw huge, elegant parties for people who were impressed by money.
Hannah noticed a car parked near the side of the house—a late-model Audi sedan with mud splattered on its side panels. She typed the plate number into her smartphone and crept up to the mansion’s back door.
She reached for the doorknob when Sister Mary Elizabeth arrived. The nun leaned against the porch railing and sucked in a few breaths of the cool air. “Maybe we should knock first.”
“I’d rather ask forgiveness than permission.”
“But what if he took Michael?”
“Then we get out as fast as we can and call Captain Tuttle.”
“I can’t do anything fast right now,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.
“I have faith in you. Here.” Hannah tossed her phone to the nun. “Worst case, I’ll distract him while you get away and make the call. You know how it works, right?”
Sister Mary Elizabeth tucked the phone into the pocket of her dress. “I’m a nun, not a Quaker. How are we getting in?”
Hannah drew a finger to her lips, then pushed open the back door. Just like she’d figured, the owner of the Audi hadn’t thought to turn the lock. With a house as insulated by land and wealth as this one, she doubted anyone bothered to lock it during the day.
But an unlocked door also meant whoever owned the car was probably inside.
The moment they stepped across the threshold, my anxiety level soared. Hannah and Sister Mary Elizabeth were now in harm’s way, breaking into the home of a man who’d killed his own father and abducted Michael and Jolene. They never would have come here if it weren’t for me. I couldn’t predict what Donnie might do if he found them, and I wasn’t sure I could protect them if things got out of control.
The first room they entered was a mudroom with a small connected bathroom. Sister Mary Elizabeth pointed out the shoes and boots sitting on a small shelf—all of them men’s size twelves. Several coats hung on the opposite wall. Some were larger than others, but all of them looked well worn.
The next room revealed a large solid wood dining table with twenty chairs tucked around it. A wall-length built-in hutch held enough china to cover the table twice over. Hannah had never seen so much crown molding in one room. A traditional painting of a field of scarlet begonias hung on one wall. Everything looked spotless and shiny, like someone had just bought all this stuff—and never used it.
“Wow,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “It’s just like a magazine.”
“We need to find the stairs.” Hannah pointed. “This way.”
Everything about this mansion told her they needed to go upstairs. This quiet and pristine ground level was probably the only one invited guests would visit. It was a mask at a costume ball, showing only what the wearer wanted you to see. If Harkrider still lived in this house, he didn’t spend much time down here. Any secrets he might be hiding were definitely on the higher stories.
She led the nun through a large open study with bookshelves that ran from the floor to the high ceiling. There must have been thousands of books—hardcovers and paperbacks mixed together in a seemingly random order. Hannah didn’t pause to look for a pattern.
The energy in this house made the fine hairs in her nose vibrate just like they had during the taxi ride with Delacroix. She remembered the way he looked at her before he slammed the door in her face, the sparks of intensity that danced in his irises. She needed to speak to him again, had to discover the source of the energy that lived inside him.
Beyond the study, the floor transitioned from hardwood to travertine and opened to the main foyer. Wide spiraling steps rose to a second-floor landing Hannah couldn’t see. A giant wrought iron and crystal chandelier blocked her view. She sneaked across the foyer to the foot of the stairs as quietly as she could.
I saw Jolene first. I noticed the hem of her dress as she pumped her legs up the steps with a fast, silent rhythm. Her dirty-blond hair bounced as she turned to climb the next flight. Hannah didn’t see her. She was too busy studying the decorative staircase spindles and looking for a sign from the Universe in their pattern. One glimpse of Jolene’s face was all it would take, but she was slipping away. I pulled at Hannah’s attention the only way I could. I sent her an image of Jolene running up the stairs.
Her senses twitched, her eyes readjusted, and she processed the image as quickly as any good reporter could. A woman was on the stairs. A woman—not a man—was in this house. She jumped onto the steps and craned her neck to see all the way up the stairs, hoping to prove the Universe right. She looked past the next landing and caught a view of Jolene’s blue dress just as she reached the top step and disappeared around a corner.
The woman hadn’t seen them, or she was running to hide. Either way, seeing the woman emboldened Hannah. She took the stairs two at a time, then paused at the second-story landing to check the hallways that ran left and right. Nothing.
“What are you doing?” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.
This was the person she needed to talk to. She just knew it. Any fear of getting caught fell away as her journalistic instincts took over. This woman—whoever she was—could confirm whether they were right about Harkrider or just chasing their own tails. Hannah was no longer just sneaking through a mansion. She was chasing her next interview.
The tall, skinny windows near the stairs drew in enough sunlight to see the many pieces of artwork hanging on the walls. Their style was anything but traditional. Some paintings were completely abstract, shapes and lines connecting nothing to nothing. She couldn’t make sense of those. The only one she understood hung just to her right—a representation of the Southern Cross constellation with disembodied skulls posing as stars. She turned her back to it.
“What on earth?” Sister Mary Elizabeth leaned against the handrail after she finished her climb. “This better be worth it.”
“I saw a woman.”
“Where? Up here?”
“She went this way.” Hannah strode down the hallway. Instead of trying to stay quiet, she projected her voice like a megaphone: “Miss? Excuse me, miss?”
Sister Mary Elizabeth ran up from behind and tugged on her jacket. “Are you crazy? We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No,” Hannah said. “I need to talk to her.” She noticed a door with a dead bolt. She stopped and reached for the handle. Turned and pushed. It was locked.
“Why are you chasing my housekeeper?”
They turned. A man stood in the hallway—tall and fit with wavy brown hair and two days’ growth of stubble on his face. It was Harkrider. Hannah recognized him from his pictures. And he didn’t look happy.
“I’m sorry. We saw a woman headed this way,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “We were looking for a restroom and got confused with all these doors.”